Billions in stimulus cash for Illinois, but jobs harder to quantify

The first financial report detailing federal stimulus spending for Illinois is in, detailing more than $6.4 billion given to 6,100-plus recipients.

The beneficiaries include major research universities and public housing, cities with worn-out roads and unincorporated towns seeking cleaner water.

The money overhauled CTA stations and underwrote a study of artificial hips. It let a Peoria health clinic keep a bilingual receptionist and hire a medical records clerk.

And it kept three actors working at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier.

Those three theater jobs are among an estimated 24,000 Illinois jobs saved or gained.

But although the impact of the stimulus funds is undeniable, the job numbers have been called into question in Illinois and nationwide.

One organization that acknowledges it overestimated its job savings is the Children's Home and Aid Society of Chicago.

Hilary Freeman, vice president of quality and performance at the society, said 34 employees got cost-of-living adjustments from stimulus funds. But that's been counted as 34 jobs created or saved.

"There were no jobs created with this. When we tried to report that, it would not let us enter zero," Freeman said. "That was 34 people that actually got that cost-of-living adjustment at our agency. We know it's wrong. We can't correct it. We're trying to find out how we can correct it or report it correctly."

On Friday, agencies received a government e-mail telling them not to count the stimulus cost-of-living adjustments as jobs retained.

On the other hand, there was apparently an undercount at the Heartland Community Health Clinic in Peoria, where a formula arrived at the "full-time equivalent" of 1.63 employees working at the clinic thanks to stimulus funds, said Executive Director Farrell Davies.

It's at least four, Davies said -- physician assistant Yvonne McCall, medical records assistant Keri Strait and an information technology hire named Nate Price. A new doctor was hired, as was a team of laborers working on an expansion of the increasingly busy health clinic. The center was able to retain a bilingual operator on the switchboard.

There are other red herrings. At $3.4 billion, the district represented by 28-year-old Republican U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, of Peoria, would seem to be the big stimulus money winner among Illinois congressional districts.